Snape's second chance
by ImDaisyTbh
Summary: Snape decided to go back in time and change what went wrong, so that Lily would he his


A/n: Snape gets another chance. Enjoy

disclaimer: I don't own anything

It wasn't fair. He kept giving and giving and giving, an never got anything back. He didn't have any real friends, because as a double agent he couldn't trust anyone. The only one he could trust, Dumbledore, was dead. He didn't have a wife because he gave her away to his worst enemy at the time. He didn't have a life because he felt dead on the inside. To sum it up, Snape was not happy.

After the final battle he had nothing left in life for him. No friends, family or home. The Potter boy had survived (but should he really be surprised?) and was living a life with his new family. Everyone had someone, _something, _except for him.

Snape was anything but stupid. He had survived his whole life by being smarter, faster and more cunning than the ones around him. He knew no one was going to help him, or ever try, so he took matters into his own hands.

Why couldn't he be happy, when everyone else was. What made them so worthy of happiness? No, he was going to make sure he got what he deserved, whatever it took.

He was a master at potions. Most wizards and witches didn't think too highly of it, thought of it as cooking. If you only had a recipe, anyone could do it. And yes, that was true. But only someone who knew their way around ingredients and spells could make their own potions, for whatever purpose they needed it.

Snape lived in an old abandoned house which had fallen to pieces, and it was perfect, since no one bothered him. He wouldn't have to stay long anyway. He had started making his potion four days ago, and by tomorrow he would need the last ingredient. The sand from a time turner. And there was only one place those could be found.

He disguised himself with polyjuice potion before walking into the ministry. No one would look twice as a middle aged, slightly plump, confident man walked through the halls. He took a quick right, down a hall and he was right where he wanted to be. Some would call it luck that no one saw him but it was all carefully planned. He couldn't afford mistakes. After all, his happiness depended on it. Once he was out he was starting to feel excited. He had a chance, A real chance this time. And he couldn't wait to take it.

It took him another seven hours before the potion was somewhat ready. As soon as he poured the time sand in, he would have to be quick. He'd have to drink it, therefore have the control of time travel in _him_ rather than in the time turner, which he would break. He decided not to use all the sand, that would be a waste, as he was just making a trip to the past and then right back again. While in the past, he would have about 30 minutes before he had to return. He had carefully thought this out, pinpointed what went wrong and how to fix it. He had narrowed it down to a week, where he was pretty certain was where Lily Evans fell in love with James Potter. They didn't talk at that time so his knowledge was limited. Luckingly, the night the Potters died, he had found and taken Lily's old diary. It was all he had left of her and he couldn't help himself. That served him well now. She had written how James had given her a white lily, on September 22th in their seventh year, and how her heart had melted. James had explained that the flower would bloom, only for her, whenever he thought of her. It never stopped blooming. Snape had picked this moment. This was the moment he was going to change. If James never gave her that flower, she would have continued walking towards her dorm. On the way young Severus would stop her, apologize and promise to leave the dark arts forever. For her. And she would understand, forgive him, and love him. Because that was the kind of person Lily was, he was certain.

Slowly and carefully breaking the time turner he poured some of the sand in. He quickly drank it, thinking of that exact moment, but 20 minutes earlier. He could feel the room start to spin.

Opening his eyes, he was pleased to see it had worked. He was currently in a hallway on the seventh floor, where James with his stupid flower would appear soon. James would then walk down two flights of stairs to meet Lily. Quickly changing his clothes to look like Hogwarts robes, to bled in, and changing his hair to brown, he waited. He knew James would be there in about ten minutes so he had to mentally prepare himself. James would walk past the pillar Snape was currently hiding behind, then walk down the stairs. A quick stunning spell and he would no longer be a problem. Easy peasy, right?

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard voices and laughter. Wait, voices? Wasn't James alone? Horror struck him as he realised his marauder friends must have accompanied him to the stairs. He concentrated and after hearing a bark- like laugh, he knew it was only Potter and Black, which was still not good, but better than all four of then. He would just have to make sure to hit James. As usual, things didn't go as planned.

James and Sirius were laughing and joking and they were almost at the stairs. They were walking beside each other, so it would still be possible for Snape to hit James. However, the exact same second Snape fired his spell, Black decided to hug James, (a farewell hug or a good luck hug, he wasn't sure), being hit by Snape's' spell instead of James.

James immediately noticed Sirius going limp in his arms and he had seen the spell. Quickly taking out his wand he was just about to fire, when he was pushed. Hard.

Snape cursed all the words he knew as he saw Sirius go limp. In slow motion he saw Potter reach for his wand, and Snape knew, that if he did, it would be over. So he did the first thing that came to mind. He sprung forward and pushed him. Hard.

James let out a scream as he felt himself lose his footing, and start falling down a flight of stairs. It wasn't just one flight of stairs though. The staircase had just begun to move, and before it had connected with the new staircase, James tumbled off. _He fell off the stairs. _It was an awfully long way down to the ground. He was sure to die. However another staircase had begun to move four floors down, catching James' fall. Snape could hear James body crash onto the stone, and worst of all, how his skull cracked. It echoed on the stone walls.

It was all going wrong. He wasn't supposed to _kill_ him! In his panic, he spotted the white lily on the floor in front of him. It wasn't dead. That could only mean that Potter was still alive. He had of course looked down, and (oh god, that was a long fall), and seeing James lying in a pool of blood made his stomach turn. But he was alive, maybe he could be saved before he bled to death. He saw McGonagall scream and run towards the body, take him in her arm, before apparating away. They had no doubt gone to St Mungo's. Completely forgetting about Lily he apparated there as well. He knew his time in the past was almost up. In the hospital he only had time to see James' rushed into surgery before he felt himself fade, going back to his time.

When he got back, however, he wasn't in the old house. He was in a big manor. Looking around he saw the place was empty, so he walked around trying to find out what this future was like. He soon saw Lily, grown up, sitting at the dinner table. He rushed forth, taking her in his arms, crying. She hugged him back, concerned, and asked him what was wrong.

"I'm just so glad to see you." he sobbed.

"You see me everyday, silly." she laughed.

That's when he saw the ring on her finger. Oh happy day, he had married Lily! But his face fell when he saw something black on her arm. He grabbed it, turned it over and almost puked. She had the dark mark. He quickly checked his own arm, and he had it too.

"What's the matter darling?" she asked. "You seem a bit out of it today."

"Yeah" he managed to say "I didn't sleep well."

She smiled at him before saying "Well why don't you check in on Hugo, I'm sure he can cheer you up."

Hugo? Who was Hugo? Right as he thought this someone walked into the room. Turning around he saw a boy, around 13 years old, with short, messy, black hair and green eyes. He didn't have the same greasy hair and his nose hadn't developed, but anyone could see it was Snape's son. That made him sick because all he could think of was Harry. That made him stop. Harry couldn't exist now, could he? If he had married Lily then Harry must've never been born. Then the prophecy would never have happened either, which meant no one had stopped Voldemort. Is that why Lily had a dark mark? He had to find out more.

He looked at the child, _his son_, and walked over to him.

"Hello, Hugo." He said. "What do you say you and I go for a walk?" The boy nodded and he followed him out of the room. Before leaving he looked back at Lily, who smiled lovingly at him. He wasn't used to that.

He and Hugo went around the Manor before finally reaching a door that led outside. On the way there he had seen a room he suspected was his office, and he excused himself to his son, saying he forgot something but would be right back.

He found the room and it was indeed his office. But oh, how he wished it wasn't. The whole room was filled with potions, over half of them slightly pink. Love potion. Had he gotten that desperate? Was he really keeping Lily as a slave to this potion? She hadn't seemed affected. Then he realised they were there in case she wanted to leave. As usual he didn't easily let of of things he cared about, and he'd never let go of Lily, even after she died, so he could only imagine losing her alive.

Walking back to his son, who smiled at him, they went outside. After their little walk he had learned a few things. Of course he couldn't ask everything he wanted to know, such as if Voldemort had control, how Hogwarts was doing, if Dumbledore was alive, because he should know those things. So, he just asked if his education was going good (he couldn't say school in case he was home schooled or had no school at all), which it was, and Hugo told him about his friends. Apparently Hogwarts was now a school where only kids whose parents were both magical, could go. He idly wondered what had happened to Filch.

Once they got back to the home he went to find Lily. He had to get some serious answers.

"Lily?" he asked, walking into the living room. "Are you here?"

She was sitting in a couch, reading a book. "Yeah Love I'm right here. How was the walk?"

"Oh it was good. Now, listen, I have some errands to run, but I expect to be back before dinner." He kissed her goodbye before quickly leaving. First thing's first, what kind of power did Voldemort have? He got that answer pretty quickly as he saw death eaters everywhere and kids practicing curcio on rats on the streets. Secondly, what had happened to James Potter? Snape honestly didn't think he had survived the fall and he doubted the hospital could save him in time. He went to the hospital anyway, to see if he could get his hands on some records. St Mungos was much the same, unlike the rest of this future he had created.

He went up to a nurse who looked like she had a minute to spare.

"Excuse me?" he asked. It was best to be polite if he wanted answers.

"Yes? If you need help you should go to the reception over there." She pointed to a disk behind him.

"Yes, of course, I understand you're busy, but I was just wondering about a James Potter."

She looked up, narrowing her eyes. "What about him?"

"Well we went to the same school back in the day, and I never knew what happened to him after the incident. I heard he was brought here?"

Her faced relaxed and she smiled. "Oh" she held up her left hand, where a beautiful ring could be seen. "Well he married me." That.. was a shock. Had Potter just gone and married another girl, after claiming to have loved Lily all his life?

She saw his puzzled look and explained further. "I didn't work here when they brought him in, but he had suffered great head trauma and blood loss. He was really lucky to have survived. However he never woke up after surgery, as he had gone into a coma. I suspect the impact his wounds had on his body was too much to handle. Two years after his surgery I started working here and he became my patient. He woke up two months later, but had to stay in the hospital for two weeks because of severe memory loss. His friends came to visit a lot and eventually he remembered them, but other than that he has had to make a new life for himself."

This was all wrong, he hadn't meant to change this much.

"I fell for him in like a week." she giggled "And we got married a year after that."

Snape was speechless. James had married another woman. Then he realised that he probably didn't even remember Lily or knew she existed.

"Oh, look at the time, I'm off to lunch." She smiled at him again, taking her robe off and walking out. He watched her walk out to the parking lot to meet none other than James Potter. He was older now but still handsome, wearing a light blue shirt tucked up to his elbows. When he saw his wife he laughed, took her in his arms and swirled her around. She laughed, kissed him, took his hand and off they went. What made Snape's stomach turn was the dark mark he saw on James' arm as he turned around.

Everyone was a death eater. People seemed happy, as long as they were purebloods. When he had asked his son about friends at school, he had only mentioned family names Snape knew to be purebloods. Come to think of it he hadn't seen any muggles around at all. He went to the nearest story to buy a newspaper, and the head line screamed at him "Muggle hunt this saturday!" Dear god. Had they made a sport out of killing muggles? How many of them were even left?

It wasn't worth it. He had Lily, he had a son, and he should be happy. But he did have a conscience and he was the reason Harry hadn't been born. Without Harry Voldemort had won the war before the fight had even begun. People might seem happy but he could sense their fear. And all those muggles, millions of millions, dead because he was selfish. He had to fix this.

The only problem was he didn't have his potion, so he would have to find a time turner. Where on Earth would he find a time turner? Then he remembered the rest of the sand of the first time turner. He hadn't used it all. Maybe it was still in that old house? It was worth a try.

He did find the rest of the sand, which was a miracle. Now he had to think. How could he stop himself from stopping Potter?

After a long time he had come to an answer it would solve all problems, even though he didn't like it. After Voldemort had ordered Nagini to kill him, she delivered several poisonous bites to his throat, which was deadly, before following her master.

As mentioned before, Snape survived by being faster, smarter and more cunning than those around him. He expected Voldemort to turn on him, sooner or later, and it wasn't a secret among the death eaters that the dark Lord liked to kill people with the help of Nagini. Therefore he always carried a bottle of antidote with him, no matter where he went. (He was a potions master after all.) He would have to go back to a moment where he could steal the antidote, and thus, kill himself. He knew he would never be able to convince his past self, as he knew how he felt. This was the only option.

Using the sand, he felt the room start to spin. Once it had stilled he knew he was there. He saw himself walk, and took pity upon himself. That version of him had never seen real happiness. But what had to be done, had to be done. He knew that once he killed his past self he would also die, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make. Once he got close enough he just snuck his hand down his pocket and nicked the potion. Then, all he could do was wait.

He saw himself be attacked, this time to die. To his surprise, Harry, Ron and Hermione burst into the room. They boy ran over to him, trying to stop the bleeding. Snape suddenly felt himself join the dying body, and he was now staring up at Harry. The boy looked concerned, worried, sad. Did he.. care for him?

He shed a tear, full of memories. He asked Harry to take it, and he did. Holding the bottle securingly in his hand, he looked down at Snape again. He looked at him with those big green eyes, and Snape knew he had done the right thing.

Life isn't always fair. Snape felt like he gave and gave, but never got anything back. Until the day he died. Because for once, he got something in return. The day he died he knew it was the right thing to do, and by giving his life, he finally got peace.


End file.
